While thus oblivious of the past, and reckless of the future, we were enjoying the present moment in this _badinage_, and I was extolling the odour of the rose, as beyond every other grateful to the olfactory nerves of man, a lively, flippant little personage came up, and accosted the Brahmin with the familiarity of an acquaintance. My companion immediately introduced me to him, and at the same time gave me to understand that this was the great Reffei, one of the most distinguished literati of the country. Although his eye was remarkably piercing, I perceived in it somewhat of the wildness which always characterizes a Glonglim. He was evidently impatient for discussion; and having informed himself of the subject of my rhapsody when he joined our party, he vehemently exclaimed,--"I am surprised at your falling in with that popular prejudice; while it is easy to show, that but for some feeling of love, or pity, or admiration, with which the rose happens to be associated--some past pleasure which it brings to your recollection, or some future pleasure which it suggests,--any other flower would be equally sweet. You see the rose a very beautiful flower; and you have been accustomed, whenever you saw and felt its beauty, to perceive, at the same time, a certain odour. The beauty and the odour thus become associated in your mind, and the smell brings along with it the pleasure you feel in looking at it. But the chief part of the gratification you receive from smelling a rose, arises from some past scene of delight of which it reminds you; as, of the days of your innocence and childhood, when you ran about the garden--or when you were decorated with nosegays--or danced round a may-pole, (this is rather a free translation)--or presented a bunch of flowers to some little favourite." He said a great deal more on the subject, and spoke so prettily and ingeniously, as almost to make a convert of me; when, on bringing my nose once more to the flower, I found in it the same exquisite fragrance as ever. "Why do we like," he continued, "the smell of a beef-steak, or of a cup of tea, except for the pleasure we receive from their taste?"